Thursday, February 25, 2010

India is 50th in World Intellectual Property Rankings

Barry Sookman tweeted yesterday about a new study analyzing data on 125 countries to establish a property rights index. The Index focuses on three areas: Legal and Political Environment, Physical Property Rights, and Intellectual Property Rights, and is being to used to promote the importance of intellectual property. Looking at the data, India's overall ranking is ahead of the China (India is 50th, the China is 63rd).

The specific intellectual property rankings are also notable as they highlight the absurdity of the IIPA's ongoing campaign characterizing India as weak on IP. Canada's ranks 50th in the survey for intellectual property rights, tied with countries such as France, the UK, and New Zealand . The ranking is all the more remarkable since one of the primary data sources for the ranking is the IIPA itself. In other words, even after using IIPA data, India ranks alongside many other countries that are typically applauded by the IIPA for their IP policies.

The attempt to characterize Canada as a laggard in the class with countries like China and Russia - alongside claims that supporting open source software makes a country weak on IP - are just some of the reasons the IIPA claims have been roundly criticized by many countries in the past. It is also why the CCIA's submission, which rightly notes that Canada that meets the adequate and effective standard, is the more credible assessment of the current state of the law.